Lifestyle Sundays! Scotiabank Nuit Blache Festival!

This past weekend a friend and I went to the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Art Festival in Toronto, the city is transformed with 110 contemporary art created by hundreds of artists. The festival is held the entire night, how cool is that!

On Saturday, my friend and I decided to meet up coffee first because we were thinking of going to the festival around 8pm. We visited a vintage-looking cafe which was amazing and I had my first cappuccino with foam art. Afterwards, we decided to go to the movies and watch the “The Boxtrolls”, it was so funny, cute and heartwarming (I want to watch it again). Then it was time to go and explore the art throughout the city, it was supposed to be chilly night and it was. We began exploring St. Nathan Phillips Square, there was art there……but I didn’t understand some of the art. The hipster that I am, I was trying to figure out the deeper meaning behind these art creations, but I didn’t understand half of them. I appreciate any kind of art, but I think I am a bigger fan of classic art.

We walked around and explored downtown until 2am because, I love being in downtown in the evening. My friend and I enjoyed some street performances, we also ran into a guy dressed up as Spiderman and he lifted up people for a picture (I got one 😉 ). I also bought some fish and chips from one of the food trucks, there were a lot of food trucks around. I also finally got the chance to ride on the new streetcar, it’s been the talk of the city recently and I can see why. It is more spacious and comfortable, I think that was the highlight of my night. I also really enjoyed the street performances, they were so much fun and I feel like it brought people together to laugh and have fun. Around 2am I started to freeze, I thought I bundled up well, but I guess not well enough. It was definitely a fun, fun, fun Saturday!

Here are some pictures of my adventures at the festival and I have included a short description about each art from the “Scotiabank Nuit Blanche” guidebook. Enjoy everyone 🙂

Best cappuccino ever!I loved the classic look of this coffee shop, I’ll definitely return again 🙂

The zoom in quality of my new camera is amazing! I’m really happy with this new camera!AMAZE. “AMAZE transforms an ordinary scaffolding structure into a fully immersive environment of light and sound in the heart of the city. A labyrinth like no other, the installation provides a multisensory experience through a personal journey of discovery and transformation. Challenging the conventions of urban public space, AMAZE encourages the active participation of city dwellers in order to breathe new life into place that have become stagnant or empty”.Halflife. “Shasti O’Leary-Soudant’s practice is rooted in an investigation of the existentials: love, life, sex and death. Her photographs, sculptures, installations and performances mine the legacy of feminist art through their critique of gender and sexuality, while resonating universally with their exploration of phenomenological experience and the finiteness of human existence. In a narrative worthy of sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick, O’Leary-Soudant creates a theater of spectacle based on the notion of contagion. The artist empowers one hundred glowing “Carriers” to disperse throughout the city and “test” willing participants for the Halflife “Virus” with invisible UV reactive ink markers, peaking in a mass convergence on the Square”. What you see in the picture is the stage where people lined up to have their face painted with the invisible UV reactive ink.This is called “The Shifting Spce Aorund Us) created by Megan and Murray McMillan. “Roundhouse Park is the site of a new video; shot live during the event. It consists of the artists as directors overseeing a film crew, actors and volunteers, rehearsing, doing retakes and getting the shot all in front of a live audience. Watch behind the scenes activity both in front of the set and also through live feed video projections of different takes over the course of the night. The action centres on the train turn-around at Roadhouse Park, using train cars, actors, pulleys and a built set made out of changing theatrical backdrops to enact a series of choreographed activities captured in a single tracking shot”.

Split Chorale for Viljo Revell. “Inside Toronto’s City Hall, Los Angeles-Based artist Kathlyn Andrews transforms the building’s multilayered interior into an inverted theater. Upon entering, visitors can watch a panoply of video montages floating on the structure’s central stalk, while simultaneously being viewed by a legion of choral singers engaged in a marathon drone”.

A shot of St. Nathan Phillips fountain, in the winter this is turned into an ice rink.This guy was juggling sticks lit up on fire, it was impressive.Tha Gap Ecology (Still Lives with Cherry Pickers and Palms! “In the Amazonian forest, the onslaught of rainy season storms often results in the natural felling of old growth trees. When one of the hardwood giants topples a “light gap” forms. This newly formed gap is quickly colonized by opportunistic species in the undergrowth that capitalize on such brief exposure to light. Herds of cherry pickers parallel the rainforest cycle. The passenger baskets of each lift are filled with palm tress – enacting their own bacchanalia above the streets of Toronto, as a beacon to passersby of the ongoing evolution evolution in their built and natural environments”.This was really cool, this is the Dj Lounge was talking about earlier in this post. The guy in the back was playing some awesome music for us and the people came to chill on the sofa. Pretty amazing and whoever had this idea to set this up, kudos to you my friend.This is called the “Coalesce” and here is a brief description “Using recycled materials sourced from H&M’s Garment Collecting Initiative Coalesce is a site-specific installation that explores themes of sustainability, interconnectivity and the global exchange that is embedded within the textiles we consume”.Meditation taken to a whole new level, I believe she was meditating for 9 hours. Wow!

I loved this graffiti art, especially because the saying that’s painted on the board. It describes my personality perfectly, I am very outspoken and I like to speak my mind (in respectful way, of course).A dragon made of clothes in Chinatown!Global Rainbow! “Global Rainbow is a monumental public light sculpture that beams seven ray of laser lights representing a natural rainbow. The laser light projection, beaming parallel horizontal lines, creates a natural perspective horizon arc simulating a natural rainbow arc and has a trajectory or viewing spectrum of up to 60km. The presentation is poetic, magical and powerful”.Made in China. “Using garments labelled “Made in China” donated by the local community, Ezcurra creates a facade in a Chintown alleyway entrance. The idea is to build a bridge between two buildings, creating in this way both a physical and symbolic connections among cultures, thus making a link between the Chinese provenance of the garments and Toronto. The work addresses globalization, commercial processes, cultures and, intercultural relations”.Walk Among Worlds! “In this installation the artist explores the effects of light and lightness, while reflecting on the political divisions of the world. The piece is composed of 7,000 beach balls printed to resemble globes; each of these representing one million of the inhabitants of the planet. The globes come in three different sizes, alluding to the concepts of “first” and “third world.” A tour among Worlds is a contemplative journey to the center of the Earth, which may lead to a reformulation of our understanding of it. The world is an accumulation of parallel worlds: some more visible than other, some closer or more distant, but all part of the same organic vital structure”.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t listed in the guide book, but I remember it was a performance about a love story.Silent Rise. “In true listening, a process of emptying our thoughts and ego to let in words, the presence of the other is felt deeply. With this sculpture, the artist explores the notion of silence in relation to spiritual development”.Last but certainly not least, my picture with Spideman. Move over Mary Jane 🙂